Demographic and health factors associated with pandemic anxiety in the context of COVID‐19

Abstract

Objectives. The mental health consequences of COVID-19 are predicted to have a disproportionate impact on certain groups. We aimed to develop a brief measure, the Pandemic Anxiety Scale, to capture the specific aspects of the pandemic that are provoking anxiety, and explore how these vary by health and demographic factors. Design. Data were from a convenience sample of parents (N = 4,793) and adolescents (N = 698) recruited in the first 6 weeks of lockdown. Methods. Factor analytic and IRT methods were used to validate the new measure in both parent and adolescent samples. Associations between scores on the new measure and age, gender, household income, and physical health status were explored using structural equation modelling (SEM). Results. Two factors were identified in both samples: disease anxiety (e.g., catching, transmitting the virus) and consequence anxiety (e.g., impact on economic prospects); and unique associations with health and demographic factors were observed. Conclusions. Anxieties due to the COVID-19 are multifaceted, and the PAS is a short, reliable, and valid measure of these concerns. These anxieties are differentially associated with demographic, social, and health factors, which should be considered when developing strategies to mitigate the mental health impact of the pandemic. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Impact of COVID-19 on Mental Health in Adolescents: A Systematic Review

“…Of the 16 studies reviewed, 7 were conducted in China, 2 in the United States, 2 in Canada, and 1 each in Denmark, Germany, Japan, the Philippines, and the United Kingdom. All of the 16 studies utilized a quantitative methodology [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31]. Among the studies, 12 (75%) were conducted online and 4 (25%) did not clearly report the study format.…”

“…Of the studies that addressed the impact of COVID-19 related anxiety for non-special populations, several studies established an association between the COVID-19 pandemic and rates of anxiety among adolescents [16][17][18]24,28,30]. One study in China [28] identified that low support (Odds Ratio [OR] = 3.18, 95% Confidence Intervals [CI]: 2.54 to 3.98) and medium support (OR = 2.19, 95% CI: 1.94 to 2.48) increased the likelihood of anxiety.…”

The impact of COVID‐19 on health behaviour, well‐being, and long‐term physical health

“…The impact of the pandemic has had a profound effect upon mental health and well-being (Horesh, Kapel Lev-Ari, & Hasson-Ohayon, 2020;Lades, Laffan, Daly, & Delaney, 2020;McElroy et al, 2020;Pierce et al, 2020). Data in both the United Kingdom and the United States suggest that symptoms of psychological distress have increased during the pandemic, with people aged between 18 and 24 years showing the greatest deterioration (McGinty, Presskreischer, Han, & Barry, 2020;Pierce et al, 2020).…”

Demographic, gadget and internet profiles as determinants of disease and consequence related COVID-19 anxiety among Filipino college students

“…Aside from dealing with the challenging nature of the new face of academics, Filipino college students have to cope with the coronavirus public health emergency and its consequences in their social lives, while being in a country placed in the longest quarantine in the world (ABS-CBN News, 2020). This study specifically focuses on COVID-19 anxiety, which can be related to the fear of contracting the disease (disease-related COVID-19 anxiety) and fear of the negative effects of the disease in social life (consequence-related COVID-19 anxiety) as suggested by McElroy et al (2020).…”

“…Multiple studies link social background and anxiety among students (Lederer et al, 2020;Myhr et al, 2020;Shadmi et al, 2020). More specifically, COVID-19 related anxiety has been associated with demographic variables such as age (Moghanibashi-Mansourieh, 2020;Shevlin et al, 2020;Solomou & Constantinidou, 2020;Tee et al, 2020), gender (Hou et al, 2020;McElroy et al, 2020;Tee et al, 2020), and economic status (Ettman et al, 2020;Poudel & Subedi, 2020;Wang & Tang, 2020).…”